Download or read book Septuagint Esther Vaticanus Version written by Scriptural Research Institute and published by Digital Ink Productions. This book was released on 2019-11-24 with total page 117 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The oldest surviving physical copy of Esther is found in the Codex Vaticanus, which dates to circa 350 AD. The version of Ether in the Codex Vaticanus is generally accepted as being the original version added to the Septuagint sometime in the 2ⁿᵈ century BC, however, it claims to have not been translated in Alexandria, like the rest of the Septuagint. There are two other early copies of the common version of Esther found in the Codex Vaticanus, the copy in the Codex Sinaiticus from circa 350 AD, Codex Alexandrinus from circa 450 AD. The term ‘king of the gods’ is found in chapter 4 of the Vaticanus version of Esther, however, does not make sense in the theology that developed in later Judaism, in which there was only one God, indicating the early date of the original composition. The title ‘king of the gods’ was used by Esther in the book, who use the title to refer to the god of the Israelite. While Esther was described as being the Queen (or royal consort) in the texts, she was also described as being a devote worshiped of the Israelite god, and ‘King of the gods’ was not a Zoroastrian title of Ahura Mazda either, as Zoroastrianism was also monotheistic, meaning that this title has to be traced back to the Israelite religion.
Download or read book Septuagint Esther written by Scriptural Research Institute and published by Scriptural Research Institute. This book was released on with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There are two versions of the Book of Esther the various copies of the Septuagint, however, neither originated at the Library of Alexandria. The common version of Esther is found in almost all copies, while the rare version is only found in four know manuscripts, numbered as 19, 93, 108, and 319. This edition includes both the Septuagint's versions, using the oldest surviving copies as source texts, the Codex Vaticanus, and Septuagint manuscript 319. In addition to the two copies of the Book of Esther found in the Septuagint manuscripts, there are two additional surviving copies of the Book of Esther, one is found in the Masoretic Texts, while the other is found among the Vetus Latina manuscripts. The Masoretic Texts are the Hebrew translations of the ancient Israelite and Judahite books that form the core of the modern Tanakh which is used by Rabbinical Jews, while the Vetus Latina manuscripts are the Latin translations of the ancient books that were made before Jerome's official Latin translation of the Catholic/Orthodox Christian Bible, published circa 405 AD. Each of these texts is unique, however, all appear to derive from earlier Aramaic texts. Nevertheless, the postscript specifically mentions the translation being made in Jerusalem, which therefore implies that Judea was under the rule of the Ptolemy and Cleopatra in question, or else there was no reason to have referenced them. The Greeks in Egypt were already using the Egyptian Civil calendar, with Greek names substituted for Egyptian, and that calendar would have been referenced if a Greek scholar in Egypt had added the note. In the Seleucid Empire, a modified version of the Macedonian calendar was in use, however, this is also not mentioned in the Vaticanus version. The only one of the couples named Ptolemy and Cleopatra who did rule Judea was Cleopatra I Syra of the Seleucid Empire and her husband Ptolemy V of Egypt, meaning the Vaticanus version of Esther was most likely translated in the year 181 BC.
Download or read book Vetus Latina Esther written by Scriptural Research Institute and published by Scriptural Research Institute. This book was released on 2021 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Vetus Latina is a collection of Latin language translations of the ancient Israelite texts, mainly based on the Greek language Septuagint translation. Not all of the Vetus Latina books were translated from the Septuagint though, as some were translated from versions of the ancient texts that do not otherwise survive to the present. The Vetus Latina’s version of Esther is one of the books not translated from either the Septuagint or proto-Masoretic versions of Esther, and therefore, is the fourth primary source for the Book of Esther. The Vetus Latina, which translates as ‘Old Latin,’ were the texts in use in the Latin-speaking regions of the Roman Empire, prior to the Orthodox Church ordering an official translation into Latin, which was created by Jerome, between 382 and 405 AD. The settling of the book is also an issue that has been debated over the centuries. The king in the story is called Artaxerxes in the Vaticanus and Vetus Latina versions, but Ahasuerus in the Masoretic and Alpha versions of the book. The name Ahasuerus is not the proper translation of Artaxerxes, but of Xerxes, and most modern scholars believe the classical translation of Artaxerxes was an error. There are many indicators in the story, that point to it being set in the era of Xerxes I, the first of which is the reference to him calling all the satraps (governors) of Persia to the capital of Susa in his third year. Both the Vaticanus and Masoretic versions of Esther agree that it was the third year, while the Vetus Latina reports it was in the twelfth year. As the years in the Vetus Latina are out of order, as the events in the seventh year follow the events of the twelfth, the chronology of the Vetus Latina is suspect, and therefore most scholars accept that the original year referenced by the author was regal year 3 of the king’s reign. In the case of Xerxes I, this was 483 BC, when Xerxes did call his satraps to Susa to plan the invasion of Greece.
Download or read book Septuagint s Esther and the Vetus Latina Esther written by Scriptural Research Institute and published by Scriptural Research Institute. This book was released on with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In addition to the two copies of the Book of Esther found in the Septuagint manuscripts, there are two additional surviving copies of the Book of Esther, one is found in the Masoretic texts, while the other is found among the Vetus Latina manuscripts. The Masoretic texts are the Hebrew translations of the ancient Israelite and Judahite books that form the core of the modern Tanakh which is used by Rabbinical Jews, while the Vetus Latina manuscripts are the Latin translations of the ancient books that were made before Jerome's official Latin translation of the Orthodox Christian Bible, published circa 405 AD. Each of these texts is unique, however, all appear to derive from earlier Aramaic texts. The oldest surviving physical copy of Esther is found in the Codex Vaticanus, which dates to circa 350 AD. The version of Esther in the Codex Vaticanus is generally accepted as being the original version added to the Septuagint sometime in the 2ⁿᵈ century BC, however, it claims to have not been translated in Alexandria, like the rest of the Septuagint. The next oldest version of Esther that survives is in the Leningrad Codex of the Masoretic Texts, with is dated to circa 1008 AD. This version is in Hebrew, and is the only one of the three copies that does not appear to have once been in Greek, and it is the only one of the three copies that does not mention God. This version was copied as part of the Masoretic Texts between the 7ᵗʰ and 10ᵗʰ centuries AD. With many Masoretic Texts, there are precursors found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, however, there are no known fragments of Esther found among the Dead Sea Scrolls to date. It is unclear where it originated, or why there is no reference to God in it. The Vetus Latina's version of Esther is one of the books not translated from either the Septuagint or proto-Masoretic versions of Esther, and therefore, is the fourth primary source for the Book of Esther. Dating the Vetus Latina is more difficult than the Septuagint, as it was the work of many individual translators over several centuries. The bulk of the work is believed to have been done between 330 BC and 50 AD by Judeans living within the expanding Roman Empire, however, around 50 AD the Latin-speaking Christians began using the texts as well. After Jerome translated the Vulgate bible, published in 405 AD, the Vetus Latina continued in use alongside the Vulgate in the Catholic countries until the 1300s. While the Vetus Latina is by nature a Latin translation of the ancient Israelite scriptures, the translations were generally made from existing Greek translations, and in the case of the Book of Esther, not from either the Vaticanus or Alpha versions.
Download or read book Esther written by Hanna Kahana and published by Peeters Publishers. This book was released on 2005 with total page 532 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is essentially a very exacting comparison between the Septuaginta translation of the Esther Scroll and its Hebrew text. Each and every verse in the Scroll is graphically presented in a four columned table in which we inserted the Hebrew text, broken up into syntactically coherent short phrases, its Greek counterpart and the English translations of the Hebrew and Greek phrases respectively. In the running commentary we discuss the additions and the omissions, examine how the Translator succeeded in rendering especially difficult and complicated Hebrew verses, and try to throw light on his language, his methods and his translational idiosyncrasies. We also quote the Vulgate, the Aramaic Targumim and the Greek A Text and, in most cases translate them too in English. The added value of this book is the synoptic graphic presentation of each verse which enables one to get an immediate impression of the two texts and their juxtaposition.
Download or read book The Amarna Letters written by Scriptural Research Institute and published by Scriptural Research Institute. This book was released on 1901 with total page 124 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Amarna Letters are a collection of clay tablets found in the ruins of El Amarna, Egypt, in the 1880s. The city of El Amarna was built by the Pharaoh Akhenaten, during his religious reforms in the 1340s BC, but was then abandoned after he died and Egypt reverted to worshiping the old gods. These letters provide a unique glimpse into a period of Egyptian history, that the Egyptians themselves attempted to erase. After Akhenaten's heir Tutankhamen died, his successor Ay was only able to hold the throne for a few years before Horemheb seized it, and attempted to reunite the Egyptians by erasing all records of Akhenaten's reforms, which included erasing Akhenaten's name from almost every record in Egypt. By this period, El Amarna appears to have already been mostly abandoned, and therefore Egyptologists were able to reconstruct the strange story of Akhenaten's reign, in the middle of the New Kingdom era. The Amarna letters were recovered from the royal archives in El Amarna, where they appear to have been archived after having been translated for the royal court. The letters are inscribed on clay tablets in Cuneiform, the dominant form of writing in Mesopotamia, Canaan, and the neighboring cultures in Anatolia and Cyprus at the time. The shape of the Cuneiform logograms used is Akkadian, the parent form of the later Neo-Babylonian, Neo-Assyrian, and Ugaritic forms of Cuneiform, however, the language used in the Letters is not pure Akkadian. The Letters are between various members of the Egyptian royal court, and many different cities and nations across the Middle East, including Babylon, Assyria, Mitanni, and Cyprus, and therefore the language within the Letters is not consistent. Within the letters from Canaanite cities, all of which were subject to Egypt at the time, several transliterated names are also used, which appears to be a direct precursor to the later development of Ugaritic Cuneiform by 1200 BC, which was an abjad similar to the Canaanite script that was developed by 1000 BC, however, used Cuneiform logograms instead of alphabet-like letters. The surviving letters were mostly about trade and diplomacy, however, do include a great deal of information about what was happening in the Middle East at the time. In particular, they demonstrate how limited Egypt's actual control of its Canaanite holdings was, where the governors of cities were constantly requesting military help to defend themselves against each other, the marauding Habirus, and the Hittite-backed Amorites in northern Canaan. The Amarna Letters were written during the mid-1330s BC, during the reigns of the Pharaohs Amenhotep III and Akhenaten, although it is not always clear when in their respective reigns the letters were written, or even which pharaoh was on the throne at the time.
Download or read book Ugaritic Texts Pertaining to Aqhat written by Scriptural Research Institute and published by Scriptural Research Institute. This book was released on 1901 with total page 54 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pertaining to Aqhat, also called the Danel Epic, or The Tale of Aqhat, is a collection of three tablets recovered from archaeological digs in the 1920s and 1930s at the ruins of Ugarit, a bronze-age city in northwest Syria, at the foot of the mountain Jebel Aqra on the modern Syrian-Turkish border. They date to Late-Bronze Era, specifically estimated to sometime around 1350 BC based on the mention of The Legend of King Keret on the colophon of the Tablet containing section 1. They tell part of the story of an ancient Canaanite king or judge named Danel, and his son Aqhat. The Ugaritic Danel is accepted as being the Danel that the anent Israelite prophet Ezekiel mentioned along with Noah and Job, suggesting all three have roots in the ancient religions of Canaan. Only part of the story of Danel and Aqhat has been found, on three tablets, all of which are broken, leaving a fragmentary story which is, unfortunately, is missing its ending. Danel is spelled as Dnỉl in Ugaritic, which is similar to the later Aramaic spelling of Dny'l, and essentially identical to the Hebrew name of Dn'l. The Greeks translated both the name of the ancient saga that Ezekiel mentioned, and the later Israelite prophet from after the time of Ezekiel as Daniêl at the Library of Alexandria, which has resulted in the Ugaritic king's name being rendered as Daniel in some translations. The three sections of text that survive on the tablets are all damaged, and were originally published in the order they were translated, but not the order that the story takes place in. As the texts are about Danel, the translations were named after him, resulting in the names 1 Danel, 2 Danel, and 3 Danel. However, while Danel may have been the protagonist, the original name of the story in the texts was Pertaining to Aqhat in Ugaritic, as the story was about Aqhat. This has resulted in the texts also being dubbed 1 Aqhat, 2 Aqhat, and 3 Aqhat, however, they were still not in the correct order, and so the revised translation in Hittite Myths and Instructions (1950) reordered them as Aqhat A (2 Danel/Aqhat), Aqhat B (3 Danel/Aqhat), and Aqhat C (1 Danel/Aqhat). This order has generally been followed ever since, and is the order followed here, however, the three sections of the texts are simply called sections 1, 2, and 3.
Download or read book Ugaritic Texts Pertaining to Keret written by Scriptural Research Institute and published by Scriptural Research Institute. This book was released on 1901 with total page 49 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pertaining to Keret, also called the Legend of Keret, or the Epic of Keret is a collection of three tablets recovered from archaeological digs in the 1920s and 1930s at the ruins of Ugarit, a bronze-age city in northwest Syria, at the foot of the mountain Jebel Aqra on the modern Syrian-Turkish border. They date to Late-Bronze Era, specifically estimated to sometime around 1350 BC based on the name of the scribe Elimelek, who also transcribed the Ba‘al Cycle for King Niqmaddu of Ugarit. The story itself is set much earlier, and in a land far to the east of Ugarit, likely along the Khabur River in eastern modern Syria, and the Tur Abdin highlands of southeastern modern Turkey. They tell parts of the story of an ancient Hurrian king named Keret, and his wife Hurriya, unfortunately, the tablets are quite damaged, and there were probably once more tablets to the story. The story begins and ends abruptly, suggesting that there was at least one tablet before and after the surviving tablets.Only part of the story of Keret and Hurriya has been found, on three tablets, all of which are broken, leaving a fragmentary story which is, unfortunately, is missing its beginning and ending, and there may have also been another tablet between Tablets 2 and 3. The surviving story begins with King Keret of Beth Khubur having already lost everything other than his throne. In some respects, the story has parallels to the Book of Job, both at the beginning and at the end, with a parallel to Homer’s Illiad in the middle. It begins with his entire family having died, and him being the only surviving son of his mother. Also, his wife and children have died, although the details of how everyone died have not survived. The Bull god El came to Keret in his dreams and told him to march his army to the land of Ủdủm, and attack the towns and villages, capturing the women that worked the fields and as woodcutters. Then to wait seven days until the king of Ủdủm agreed to his terms, and surrendered his eldest daughter to Keret to become his new wife. While it is not entirely clear where the story is set, the names Beth Khubur and Ủdủm suggest the Khabur River tributary of the Euphrates River, in eastern modern Syria. Beth Khubur is a combination of two words, bt, meaning house or temple in Canaanite, and ḫbr, originally the Sumerian word for river, which was adopted by the Akkadians as the name for two major tributaries of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. The Khabur which was a tributary for the Euphrates has four major sources, three of which are in the Tur Abdin highlands of southeastern Turkey, which is likely what was being referred to as Ủdủm in the story.
Download or read book Syriac Apocalypse of Ezra and the Arabic Apocalypse of Daniel written by Scriptural Research Institute and published by Digital Ink Productions. This book was released on with total page 137 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Syriac Apocalypse of Ezra, sometimes called the Revelation of Ezra appears to have been reworked in the High Middle Ages. Another version of the apocalypse has survived in Arabic, but attributed to Daniel not Ezra, commonly known as the Arabic Apocalypse of Daniel. The Arabic version is shorter and appears to be older, likely dating to earlier than the time of Muhammad, while the Syriac version has been reworked into an anti-Islamic apocalypse, likely between 1229 and 1244. The apocalypse includes a reference from the High Middle Ages to Muslims as Ishmaelites, and Mongols as Gog and Magog, forming an alliance and conquering Jerusalem. This idea would not have been conceivable until the Mongols defeated the Khwarazmian Empire, an Islamic Turko-Persian empire in Iran and Central Asia. Before that, the idea that the Mongols could reach Jerusalem was not a consideration. The Apocalypse indicates that the city of Jerusalem was occupied by Christians at the time, which would place the anti-Islamic redaction to sometime between 1229 and 1244. The Latin crusaders had been driven out of Jerusalem in 1187, however, the kingdom of Jerusalem continued to exist, first from its capital in Tyre, and later Acre, however, in 1229 Jerusalem was recaptured, and held until 1244. As the Principality of Antioch was another crusader state to the north, and the name ‘Antioch’ appears to have been added earlier in the Apocalypse, the redactor may have meant it as a piece of propaganda intended to garner support from Byzantine Christians, who had not generally participated in the crusades and had better relations with the Muslims than the Catholics. The older Arabic version of the apocalypse likewise appears to have been used for propaganda, however, was anti-Jewish instead of anti-Islamic, and appears to have been written in Aramaic before the time of Muhammad. Based on the dialect of Arabic, it most likely originated in Palestine, among medieval Christians. The Arabic version is much shorter and is mostly paraphrased from the Gospels and other early Christian works, however, the content of the apocalypse is clearly something that was incorporated into the longer Syriac Apocalypse. While the content of the Arabic apocalypse is repeated in the Syriac apocalypse, it is a direct translation, but a series of paraphases that are reinterpreted in an anti-Islamic way. The longer Syriac apocalypse, which must originate much later than the pre-Islamic Arabic apocalypse, nevertheless, has much more content, most of which appears to have been composed in Neo-Babylonian sometime between 597 and 592 BC. The Syriac apocalypse has many Greek loanwords, confirming it was written in Greek, as well as an Arabic word the Syriac translator chose over a Syriac word, suggesting the Syriac translation was done long after Northern Iraq became Arabic speaking. All known copies of the Syriac Apocalypse can be traced to Iraqi Kurdistan, or the old Christian churches of Mosul, just south of Kurdistan. All of the surviving manuscripts are also in the Eastern Syriac script, and ten of the known 15 manuscripts can be linked to the Rabban Hormizd Monastery, of the Chaldean Catholic church, suggesting that all known copies are derived from the texts maintained at the monastery. The oldest known manuscript is from 1702 and is known as MS Mingana Syriac 11, or simplified to Mingana 11. It was copied on January 16, 1702, by a Hoshabo, son of Daniel, son of Joseph the priest, son of Hoshabo, and bought by Alphonse Mingana in the 1920s. Minanga was a British orientalist who had been born in Ottoman Kurdistan, and in the 1920s made multiple trips to northern Iraq to acquire ancient manuscripts, which later became the Mingana Collection at the University of Birmingham, in England.
Download or read book Ugaritic Texts Victorious Ba al written by Scriptural Research Institute and published by Scriptural Research Institute. This book was released on 1901 with total page 80 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Victorious Ba‘al is the first section of the Ba‘al Cycle, a collection of ancient stories about the Canaanite god Hadad. The term Ba‘al in the Ugaritic Texts, meaning ‘lord’ or ‘master,’ is the equivalent of the Akkadian belu, Canaanite b‘l, Sabaean b‘l, Aramaic ba‘la, Hebrew b‘l, Syriac ba'la, Arabic ba‘l, and Ge‘ez bal. The Ugaritic Texts are ancient tablets that were recovered from archaeological digs at the ruins of Ugarit, a bronze-age city in northwest Syria, at the foot of the mountain Jebel Aqra on the modern Syrian-Turkish border. The Ba‘al Cycle is generally divided into several sections, based on the groupings of the tablets that were discovered, however, this series of translations is divided into just two sections, Victorious Ba‘al, and Ba‘al Defeats Mot. These divisions are always subjective. Some translators divide the central section regarding the building of Ba‘al’s Temple on Mount Zaphon from the preceding battle with Yam. Others also separate out the intermediate section involving Ba‘al’s discussion with Anat, however, this series is divided based on the apparent shift in source material between the early section and the later section. The earliest section appears to be a translation from ancient Egyptian and includes Egyptian loanwords, as well as numerous references to the houses of the gods, which seems to be a reference to the system of decans used in Egypt from the Old Kingdom onward, to tell time at night. The 36 ancient Egyptian decans, or houses of stars, are accepted as the basis of pre-Babylonian astrological systems throughout Eurasia, including the systems used in India, China, and Japan. The traditional Canaanite system, while poorly documented was somewhat more complex, having 72 houses instead of 36. One was the House of El, and one was the House of Asherah, his main wife, and 70 belonging to their children, the Elim (gods), and Elohim (goddesses). The first section, Victorious Ba‘al, appears to be a later text, written after 1700 BC, when the gods changed places in the sky and destroyed the Minoan Civilization, in the view of the Minoans. In approximately 1700 BC, a massive series of earthquakes destroyed most of the Minoan cities and palaces. The earthquake marks the division between the Old Palace Period and the New Palace Period of Minoan architecture. At the time, there was a significant change in the sky, as the Bull stopped being the asterism that marked the northern vernal equinox, and the Ram replaced him. Unlike the Bull, the Ram was not on the ecliptic, the line in the sky that the sun and planets travel on relative to the earth, but above it. Below the ecliptic, and closer to it, was the Sea Monster, later called Cetus. The battle in the Victorious Ba‘al, was about the storm-god Hadad battling the sea-god Yam, to take over the kingship from the ram-god Attar, and appears to be about the struggle between these two gods to rule the earth after the bull god El had turned over his throne to the ram god Attar. That transition would have happened in circa 1700 BC, and so this text had to be written later than that.
Download or read book The Shapira Scrolls written by Scriptural Research Institute and published by Digital Ink Productions. This book was released on 2024-07-20 with total page 65 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Shapira scrolls, also known as the Shapira manuscript or Moabite Deuteronomy, are a collection of leather strips supposedly discovered in the Arnon Valley of modern Jordan in the 1860s. While they were initially accepted as authentic by the Jewish antiquities dealer Moses Shapira, they were later discredited as forgeries by German and British biblical scholars. Since the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls in the 1940s, there have been several scholars who have called into question the claims that the leather strips were a forgery, however, their whereabouts is unknown, and therefore no modern analysis of the leather strips is possible. Several reasons were given for the initial claims that the strips were a forgery, including the script, language, and content. The script is a form of Phoenician, similar to the Moabite script of the 800s BC, however, the language includes Imperial Aramaic terms not used until the Persian era, several centuries later. The content is not a match for any surviving translation of Deuteronomy, however, it does include many parallel statements. Some of the statements are somewhat heretical, however, they do seem similar to the beliefs of the Hasidian and Tobian sects reported to have been living in the region under Greek rule between 330 and 240 BC. Moses Shapira had previously been involved in the discovery and authentication of both authentic and fraudulent artifacts for the museums and universities of Europe, including five scrolls inscribed on leather sold in 1870, that were later assumed to be forgeries in 1884 and have subsequently disappeared. His biggest ‘swindle’ was thousands of fake Moabite artifacts labeled as Moabitica, which were apparently dug up at a site in the Arnon Valley of modern Jordan. These artifacts included stone heads, and clay vessels inscribed with Moabite text, and were dug up by both Shapira’s workers and German scholars, who later assumed Shapira’s people hid the artifacts there for them to find. The Altes Museum in Berlin bought the largest collection of these artifacts, at 1700, however, there were additional sales to other institutions and individuals across Europe, and the total number of artifacts is unknown.
Download or read book Ugaritic Texts Ba al Defeats Mot written by Scriptural Research Institute and published by Scriptural Research Institute. This book was released on 1901 with total page 59 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ba‘al Defeats Mot, also called the Death of Ba‘al, is the final section of the Ba‘al Cycle, a collection of ancient stories about the Canaanite god Hadad. The term Ba‘al in the Ugaritic Texts, meaning ‘lord’ or ‘master,’ is the equivalent of the Akkadian belu, Canaanite b‘l, Sabaean bʿl, Aramaic baʿla, Hebrew bʿl, Syriac baʿla, Arabic baʿl, and Ge‘ez bal. The Ba‘al Cycle is generally divided into several sections, based on the groupings of the tablets that were discovered, however, this series of translations is divided into just two sections, Victorious Ba‘al, and Ba‘al Defeats Mot. These divisions are always subjective. Some translators divide the central section regarding the building of Ba‘al’s Temple on Mount Zaphon from the preceding battle with Yam. Others also separate the intermediate section involving Ba‘al’s discussion with Anat, however, this series is divided based on the apparent shift in source material between the early section and the later section. The earliest section, as well as the conclusion of the second section, appears to be a translation from ancient Egyptian and includes Egyptian loanwords, as well as numerous references to the houses of the gods, which seems to be a reference to the system of decans used in Egypt from the Old Kingdom onward, to tell time at night. The 36 ancient Egyptian decans, or houses of stars, are accepted as the basis of pre-Babylonian astrological systems throughout Eurasia, including the systems used in India, China, and Japan. The numerous Egyptian loanwords are accounted for as the Ugaritic text being a translation of an Egyptian work, which appears to be what the postscript was referring to. The main section of Ba‘al Defeats Mot appears to have been translated from an old Akkadian text that retold a Hurrian and Hattic story about two gods descending into the underworld. Many Akkadian, Hattic, and Hurrian loanwords are found in the text, which are generally missing from the earlier section, as well as the conclusion. The major exception being the messenger Ủgar, who was a Hurrian psychopomp, like the Canaanite Horon, and Greek Charon. As the city of Ugarit was named after him, this name clearly predates the text itself, and so it cannot be used to date the text. Nevertheless, does indicate that the city was originally a Hurrian settlement before becoming Semitic, which helps to explain why the older second section, appears to be a translation of an Akkadian retelling of a Hurrian story. Additionally, Luwian names are found in the second section, which places the origin of the Akkadian source text to sometime between when the Luwians settled in western Anatolia, generally dated to circa 2000 BC, and when the Hittites absorbed the Hattians around 1700 BC. As the text appears to have then been translated into Egyptian, before Ugaritic, it may trace the route the Hyksos took to Egypt, via the Luwian, Hattic, and Hurrian lands.
Download or read book Septuagint History written by Scriptural Research Institute and published by Digital Ink Productions. This book was released on 2019-12-22 with total page 1411 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the mid 3ʳᵈ century BC, King Ptolemy II Philadelphus of Egypt ordered a translation of the ancient Israelite scriptures for the Library of Alexandria. This translation later became known as the Septuagint, based on the description of the translation by seventy translators in the Letter of Aristeas. By 132 BC, the Septuagint included all the books later adopted by the Byzantine Orthodox church as the Old Testament section of the Christian Bible. Some of these books were rejected by the Hebrew translators during the Hasmonean Dynasty of Judea, and never formed part of the Masoretic text. The Septuagint of 132 BC, included four sections: the Torah, History, Wisdom, and Prophets sections. The History section includes the books of Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Kingdoms, Paralipomena, Ezra, Tobit, Judith, Esther, and Maccabees. One of the problems with academic translations of the Septuagint, is the use of unfamiliar names or terms, as the Septuagint was written in Greek, and therefore many names are unrecognizable to modern readers who are used to Hebrew-derived names. This project uses the more commonly understood Hebrew-derived names instead of their Greek translations, such as Canaan instead of Chanaan, and Melchizedek instead of Melchisedec. Common modern names are also used instead of either Greek or Hebrew terms when geographical locations are known, such as the archaeological name Uruk instead of the Greek Orech, or the Hebrew Erech, and the archaeological term Sumer instead of Shinar or Senar. While this could be argued as not being a correct academic procedure, it does fulfill the goal of making the translation easy to read and understand.
Download or read book Dream Stele of Thutmose IV written by Scriptural Research Institute and published by Digital Ink Productions. This book was released on 2020 with total page 22 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thutmose IV inherited the New Kingdom at its peak when his father Amenhotep II died. Amenhotep II had likewise inherited a strong empire from his father Thutmose III, and had organized a peace treaty with the Mitanni Empire to the north. Thutmose IV took the peace treaty one step further and married a Mitannian princess to secure a peaceful northern border. He is most famous for his activities at the great sphinx of Giza, and the Dream Stele he erected beneath its head. There is debate about why he erected the Dream Stele, and some Egyptologists have suggested it was intended as propaganda to validate his seizing the throne instead of it falling to his elder brother, as it states that the great god Haremakhet-Khepri-Ra-Atum spoke to him in a dream, in the form of the great sphinx, and promised he would be the king one day. It seems extremely unlikely that Amenhotep II would have allowed him to erect the stele while he was still alive, as Thutmose IV was not his chosen heir, and it is therefore assumed that he erected it after assuming the kingship. One of the things that Thutmose IV is most famous for, is digging the sphinx's body out of the sand that had filled the sphinx enclosure, which early Egyptologists interpreted as digging the enclosure itself and creating the sphinx's body. This is no longer the accepted reading of the Dream Stele, and it is now believed Thutmose IV merely restored the sphinx's body. Nevertheless, if the sphinx's enclosure was filled with sand, then the sphinx temple and the neighboring red granite temple must have also been filled with sand, and so Thutmose IV must have uncovered more than just the Great Sphinx. Unfortunately, the lower section of the Dream Stele is damaged, and so we do not know how it ended. Egyptologists generally assume it was a list of donations that Thutmose IV made to various temples, which would be consistent with other steles and biographies from the time.
Download or read book The Life of Thutmose III written by Scriptural Research Institute and published by Digital Ink Productions. This book was released on with total page 49 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thutmose III was the king of Egypt between circa 1458 and 1425 BC, after inheriting the throne from his father Thutmose II and his aunt Hatshepsut, however, after Hatshepsut died Thutmose III claimed to have been the king of Egypt throughout Hatshepsut’s reign, meaning his regal years began circa 1479 BC when his father Thutmose II died. This attempt to erase Hatshepsut as a king of Egypt was likely not personal, as he did not attempt to usurp her authority during his life, but more likely an attempt to restore the respect for the kingship that appears to have been lost while Hatshepsut was on the throne. The graffiti of Hatshepsut dressed as the king and having sex with a man found near her mortuary temple clearly shows that she was not respected the way the previous god-like pharaohs had been, and Thutmose III was almost certainly trying to erase what many Egyptians viewed as a distasteful episode of their history. Ironically, her mortuary temple is viewed as one of the greatest architectural monuments of the New Kingdom and served as the basis of all later mortuary temples of the New Kingdom. Thutmose III did not attempt to erase Hatshepsut’s existence from Egyptian history, just her kingship, and she was still spoken of fondly as the ‘queen’ and ‘favorite wife of Thutmose II.’ Her reign seems to have been one of contracting frontiers, as Egypt appears to have lost control of Syria early in her reign, which Thutmose III quickly reversed, launching an invasion of Syria within his first year on the throne. This was the legendary Siege of Megiddo, against the king of Kadesh and his Syrian allies, inscribed in detail in the Annals of Thutmose III at Karnak. The details of the battle inscribed at Karnak were copied from Thutmose III’s scribe Tjaneni’s journal and is a far more detailed account than the subsequent list of battles and plunder taken during Thutmose III’s subsequent invasions of Northern Canaan and the Mitanni Empire in modern Syria, or his campaign against the Nubians. The Capture of Jaffa is another battle reported to have taken place during Thutmose III’s reign, although is generally considered a fictionalized account, as it was found with a copy of The Doomed Prince which is considered ancient Egyptian fiction. How much of the Capture of Jaffa is considered fiction, and how much is historical has been a matter of debate, largely because of the similarities to Homer’s account of the Battle of Troy. The surviving copy of this text was discovered on a papyrus scroll dating back to the Ramesside Period, hundreds of years before Homer wrote the oldest surviving account of the Trojan War. Moreover, the Capture of Jaffa is set centuries before the Trojan War, and while there is a similar story of soldiers being hidden inside a tribute taken into the city, the stories are different overall. Moreover, given Capture of Jaffa appears to have been a popular enough story that it was being copied in Egypt at the time of the Trojan War if the story of the wooden horse actually happened, the Achaeans may have gotten the idea from the Capture of Jaffa.
Download or read book Autobiography of Thoth the Nobleman written by Scriptural Research Institute and published by Scriptural Research Institute. This book was released on with total page 27 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thoth the Nobleman was a herald of Queen Hatshepsut and her young son Thutmose III, who seems to have died while she was still ruling Egypt, as his autobiography refers to her as the King of Egypt. After she died, Thutmose III tried to remove all records of her being king, although she was still mentioned in newly written biographies as the 'divine wife' and 'chief royal wife' of Pharaoh Thutmose II. Thoth the Nobleman reports that he was trusted by Queen Hatshepsut more than anyone else, as he kept quiet about what was happening in the palace. This statement may not be entirely true as the architect Senenmut is generally considered to have been her lover. Another theory is that Senenmut may have been a homosexual friend of hers, which would then open the possibility that Thoth the Nobleman was her lover. Graffiti depicting a female or hermaphrodite pharaoh having sex with a man was discovered in an incomplete temple near the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut, which is generally assumed to have been a representation of Senenmut, however, only the image survives without any writing that identifies the man, who could have been any Egyptian man, including Thoth the Nobleman, or simply intended as a representative figure of a generic male intended to insult the 'king' by depicting 'him' as a female. As this graffiti is depicted close to the massive and iconic Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut, it is clear that at least some of the men in Egypt did not view her as a 'king' even late in her reign, which supports the rebellion of the 'Wicked-Evil Kushite' in the Syrian Rivers province for the first eight years of her reign in the Septuagint's Book of Judges. Thoth the Nobleman described working on many major projects throughout the reign of Queen Hatshepsut, including her Mortuary Temple, the Temples at Karnak, and the mysterious Hahut, a great sanctuary of Amen on his horizon in the west, which may have been an early reference to the Oracle Temple of Amen in the Siwa Oasis. Thoth the Nobleman also reported working on the ceremonial boat of Amen called 'Amen's Mighty of Prow.' Three centuries later, when the High Priest of Amen Her-Heru attempted to replicate this deed, it led to the problematic Voyage of Wenamen.
Download or read book Autobiography of Ahmose pen Ebana written by Scriptural Research Institute and published by Digital Ink Productions. This book was released on 2020 with total page 30 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ahmose pen-Ebana was a major figure in the battles that forged Egypt’s empire during the New Kingdom era, in the late 1500 BC. According to his autobiography, he fought in the Battle of Avaris (circa 1550 BC), when the Theban Dynasty overthrew the Hyksos Dynasty, and then he fought at the Battle of Sharuhen a few years later, in which the last of the Hyksos Dynasty was destroyed. After these battles, the Thebans had gained political control over both Northern Egypt and Canaan, although the level of control exercised in Canaan is unclear. Then he reports fighting in a series of battles in Nubia as the Thebans conquered and enslaved northern Sudan. A canal had been dug through the shallow third cataract during the Middle Kingdom, which the Egyptians re-dug as soon as they took control of the region again during the campaigns of Ahmose I, who campaigned in Nubia between approximately 1540 and 1525 BC. The third cataract appears to also be the farthest south the Egyptians built a fortress during Ahmose pen-Ebana’s lifetime, the fortress at Tombos, which was more likely there to keep the canal clear for trade than to protect Egyptians from the Nubian tribes. Ahmose pen-Ebana then reports campaigns that were likely along the Yellow Nile in Darfur (modern Wadi Howar), and east past the fourth cataract of the Nile, before the Pharaoh Thutmose I declared victory in the south and marched his army as far north as it could go, invading the Mitanni Empire in Syria. His march through Canaan to the Euphrates was described as peaceful, and apparently, the Canaanite princes recognized his authority over the land. This march is believed to have happened in 1503 BC, and was his second peaceful march through Canaan, the first in 1505 BC, shortly after his coronation. Ahmose pen-Ebana does not report being part of that campaign, nor the earlier campaign of Ahmose I into Canaan after conquering Sharuhen, which strongly suggests that he did not take part in these campaigns. His long service in the Egyptian military includes service under three Pharaohs: Ahmose I (circa 1549 to 1524 BC), Amenhotep I (circa 1525 to 1504 BC), and Thutmose I (circa 1506 to 1493 BC), and included many of the most important battles that laid the foundation of the New Kingdom, allowing Egyptologists to understand the order of these battles, as well as the Egyptian view of the battles and their enemies. Ahmose pen-Ebana’s autobiography has survived to the present because it was cut into his tomb walls in El Kab, his hometown. About half of the text carved into the wall was destroyed when Egyptologists broke into the tomb in the 1800s, however, most of his biography seems to have survived. There is some damage to the wall the autobiography was carved on, resulting in short lacunas, however, Egyptologists believe their reconstructions of the missing texts are accurate, given how short the gaps are. In this translation, the Egyptologists’ reconstructions are treated as accurate, and their reconstructions are translated with the rest of the text. This may result in minor translation errors compared to the original text, however, it is better than reading sentences with missing words, especially when the words seem fairly obvious.
